When I mention digging Jerusalem artichokes to people, most of them think about the globe artichokes sold in the markets. This is not what I am talking about at all.
Globe Artichoke or Jerusalem Artichoke?
The globe artichoke is the flower of a thistle. These are enormous flowers, but just like the ones on roadside thistles before they open. If you slice through one of these, it will look like the market variety in miniature.
The Jerusalem artichoke is a sunflower. Wild varieties bloom in August and do have small tubers. My garden variety grows much taller, has large tubers and blooms in late August.
Artichokes and Potatoes
Another comment from people is how a Jerusalem artichoke is like a potato. Other than both being tubers, this is far from the truth.
Potatoes can be grown, dug, dried and stored in the pantry in a box. Yes, Jerusalem artichokes can be grown and dug like potatoes. If you try to dry them and store the min the pantry, they will wither away into husks.
Digging Jerusalem Artichokes
Since Jerusalem artichokes do not store well, they get dug as they will be used. I dig my first ones after the stalks have frozen and turned brown and brittle. These are chopped off about six inches over the ground and the stalks carted away. The stubs mark where to dig for tubers.
The best tool I’ve found is a potato fork. Pick one plant to dig. Have a bucket of water handy.
Use the fork to lift out the plant. The tubers are connected to the roots and buried in the ground. I use the fork to lift the tubers buried as much as a foot deep up.
I knock a lot of the dirt off. The bucket of water is for swishing off much of the dirt still on the tubers. Not all of the dirt will come off.
Yield
A single established plant yielded two plastic grocery sacks of tubers. This doesn’t count the discards chewed on by millipedes and sowbugs or too small to bother with.
No matter how carefully you are digging Jerusalem artichokes, you never get all of them. The plant will sprout up again in the spring to yield next winter’s crop.
